ONLINE CHURCH BULLETIN

Patting Birds on the Head

In a cartoon strip some years ago a little guy was taking heat from his sister and friends for a newly found "calling"—patting birds on the head. The distressed birds would approach, lower their little feathered pates to be patted, sigh deeply, and walk away satisfied. It brought him no end of fulfillment in spite of the teasing he took from others. "What's wrong with patting birds on the head?" he wanted to know.

"What's wrong with it?" his embarrassed friends replied, "No one else does it!"

If your niche is encouraging, please don't stop. If it is embracing, demonstrating warmth, compassion, and mercy to feathers that have been ruffled by offense and bruised by adversity, keep stroking. Don't quit, whatever you do (Galatians 6:9).

I think many Christians are dying on the vine for lack of encouragement from other believers. Proverbs 15:23 says, "A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!" Isn't that true? It's a delightful thing to receive a good word just at your time of need. Encourage someone today. If God made you a "pat-ter," then keep on patting to the glory of God.

—Dallas Seminary Daily Devotional for June 21

"The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary" —Isaiah 50:4

via Glad Tidings of Good Things
Volume 11 (July 20, 2006), page 1